Standard construction of a motor home or bus (generally referred to herein as a “recreation vehicle” or “RV”) requires construction of a chassis that may typically provide the mechanical workings of the RV. The chassis will typically house the suspension, the engine and drive train. The chassis will also operably support a body that will include a living environment including among other things a plurality of passenger seats in a bus or a living area in a motor home.
Often, the chassis and the mechanical workings of the RV may be formed as a modular unit that are then provided to a separate manufacturer who constructs the body of the RV on and integrated into the chassis. As such, the chassis builder will strive to provide the best base on which the body manufacturer can build and install the body onto and integrate into the chassis. More particularly, the chassis builder will strive to provide a generally planar working environment on which and into which the body can be built and incorporated.
When the chassis provides an uneven working environment, the floor of the body must be shimmed and leveled, much like floors and doors must be leveled in the construction of a building such that the components of the body are true and square.
It is desired, but not always necessary, to avoid crowns in the center of the chassis, i.e. between the front and rear of the chassis when viewed from the side, to avoid the need to level the floor of the body during assembly on opposite sides of the crown. If any deviation from a planar working environment is present, it is desired that the deviation takes the form of a dip such that any shimming can be done in the center of the floor.
This ability to avoid a crown can be very difficult in standard RV construction. This is true, because many RV's mount the engine to the chassis at a position rearward of the rear axle(s) of the RV. Thus, the rear axle(s) act as a fulcrum causing the portion of the chassis that is rearward of the axle(s) to bend vertically downward causing the middle and front of the chassis to want to be lifted vertically upward. This bending action will cause undesirable crowning of the chassis at a position between the front of the chassis and the rear axle(s). Due to the significant weight of the engine and its components, this bending can be rather significant. Merely increasing the size of individual structural members of the chassis may not be adequate to compensate for the bending as this can add undesirable weight and reduce volume for storage and other components of the RV. Every half-inch to inch of space savings can provide significant benefits.
Embodiments of the present invention relate to improvements in chassis for RV's and methods of manufacturing chassis for RV's.